Through Glass
by AnabelleG
Summary: Oneshot. A random event changes everything. And I feel it's only fair to warn you...there is a character death.


**A/N: **This was inspired by a lyric in the song "Through Glass" by Stone Sour. I am sure the meaning behind the song is in no way reflected in this one-shot, but one line led to an idea which led to this, and I believe in giving credit where it is due….

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He stood there staring, his throat tightening as the need grew. His heart beating faster with the effort to resist. It was a simple wooden drawer, wide and flat with a tarnished brass handle. He didn't want to open it, knew that he shouldn't look at what lay inside. It would pull him under if he allowed it, if he didn't keep it hidden away. But it called to him with a sweet siren's song, tempted him with promises of comfort that he knew hid jagged edges with the power to wreck him.

Maybe it was the hope that this time would be different. Perhaps there was more than a small part of him that thought he deserved what was to come. In the end, the reasons didn't matter. As he had every time before, he chose to open the drawer.

The frame rested face down on the worn green felt that covered the wood. He reached for it without hesitation, the decision already made, his mind telling him that he was prepared for the consequences. He turned the delicate silver frame in his hands with reverence, not allowing himself to breath until he saw the photograph it held.

He looked at her through the glass, the soft light in her eyes and the curve of her smile slicing away another piece of his soul.

_"….God, Angela…she looks so alive, so happy….."_

_"….Booth, when…when I took this picture…she was looking at you…"_

His breath hitched once as the words echoed in his mind. Again as he brushed his fingers over the cool surface that separated her from him. And a final time as he returned the photograph to the drawer. Then she was gone again and the pain arced through him, a white-hot current of guilt and regret and loss that wrenched a strangled sob from deep inside him.

Because she was gone. A thin slick of water on dark asphalt and a truck driver with too little sleep and too many pills had taken her away from him. They said that it was instantaneous, that she hadn't had time to know what was happening to her. The same soothing lie he had offered so many times to others, and he grabbed onto it with both hands, begging God to let it be true because he hadn't been there to protect her, to save her. To keep her from dying alone.

He wept for the time he'd spent denying what they both wanted, the chance for happiness that he had wasted, all in the mistaken belief that he needed distance to protect her from the Eppses of the world. But it hadn't been Epps or the Gravedigger or some other psycho that had killed her. It was a random car accident. And where had he been when she truly needed him? At the diner sitting over a plate of cold fries, annoyed with her for being late and not returning his calls.

The guilt bent him double, his arms wrapped around his body as the painful sobs tore through him. He wasn't aware of the wet heat of the tears on his face, didn't care about the spittle that fell from his open mouth, the mucus that ran from his nose, the hard ache in his throat as the grief poured from him without inhibition. It was raw and ugly and real and in this moment it was his.

Every where else he ceded the sorrow to others. He didn't have a choice. He had to be strong while he comforted Angela when she couldn't bear another of Jack's sad, angry rants. When he had hauled Zach back to the lab after he had retreated to his apartment for two weeks. And when Parker had come to him with innocent questions about heaven and hell and why she had to go away, wanting answers he didn't have, he'd had to be stronger than ever.

Sliding into the car expecting her to be in the seat beside him and finding it empty. Dialing the phone to update her on a case or ask if she wanted chinese for lunch before he remembered that she wouldn't answer. The scent of her perfume on a passing stranger. Even then, he allowed himself little more than a deep, unsteady breath before he forced himself to move forward.

It was the way he traveled through the days until once again he found himself staring at the tarnished brass handle, wondering if this would be the time that he could bear it.

The weeping faded first into ragged breaths and then to an uneasy silence. Eventually he would press the heel of his hands against his red eyes, splash cold water over his swollen face and slowly begin to draw the pieces of himself back together.

He would answer the phone. Check the gun in his holster. Slide his arms into his jacket and press the pockets in search of his keys.

He would open the door and walk out into a world that no longer had her in it.

He would pretend to be strong until the next time he saw her smiling back at him from beneath the glass.


End file.
